Waste next source for ethanol

Process would use cobs instead of corn, straw instead of grain

Driving.ca
Margaret Munro, Canwest News Service

Old candy wrappers, wheat straw and dead trees seem an unlikely defence against soaring gas prices, but the race is on to tap into the vast store of energy locked in municipal, agricultural and forest waste.

"With the amount of garbage we generate, the scale-up potential is huge," says Robert Gallant, president of Canada's leading biofuel company, who is now eying the trash. His firm, GreenField Ethanol, recently joined forces with a Quebec group that has come up with a way to turn municipal waste into biofuel.

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